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Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Saving the Earth, One Bag at a Time

Isn't she lovely?

This is my husband Michael's grandmother Doris, this is also Dale's mother. She is so kind, generous, sweet, loving, witty, and crafty on top of all that. At a recent family reunion I saw her crocheting what looked like strips of tissue paper. I then asked her what she was doing and she explained that she was crocheting strips of old plastic shopping bags together to make a sturdy waterproof bag. Wow, what an idea!

Here is how you do it:

Lay a plastic shopping bag flat(the type you get from the grocery store). OK, it doesn't have to be perfectly flat, because I am nowhere close to a perfectionist and it worked for me.

Cut the handles off as well as the bottom.

Now cut the bag into about 1 inch strips, again, no need to be a perfectionist on this!

You should end up with a bunch of loops like this...

To make the "yarn" you link them together. I don't know what type of knot this is....any boy scouts out there know what this is? I just remember linking my jelly bracelets together like this.

I spread out the loops so you could see what it looks like, but you would just crochet as if it was a piece of yarn, you don't really spread it out like that.

Now, here is the part that hopefully you crochet masters will understand because I'm not great at explaining things.....

To make the bag.... You will chain until you get the length you want the bag. Then start your rows. You will continue doing rows until you get the base of the bag as wide as you would like. So you might chain 30 and do 8 rows to get the base. Once you get the base the size you want, you will start going around and around the base in a circle, as you start doing this, it will make the sides of the bag. You will keep going in circles making the sides until it is as deep as you want. To make the straps, you can braid the bag strips or you could double crochet them.

Leave a comment if you have questions about it. If you try it, send us your pictures so we can post your creations.

Tip: if you use bags with different colored logos on them, you will get a speckles of all different colors, which can be fun.

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